To [the scientific man] the discovery of a new law of nature, or even of a new experimental fact, or the invention of a novel mathematical method, no matter who has been the first to reach it, is an event of an order altogether different from, and higher than, those which are so profusely chronicled in the newspapers.

In: W.J. Miller (ed.), Scientific Papers: By W.J. Macquorn Rankine, Memoir (p. ix)